"Two max," Tammy interjected. "Those are small rooms, off smaller corridors. Too many of us and we'll just get in each other's way—mebbe even blast the fuck out of each other in the confusion."
"I'd go with that," Ryan agreed. "You pick the two you want, okay?" And when the Gate number two assented, the one-eyed man turned his attention to the Armorer. "That was damn fine work, J.B. How are you feeling?"
"Had the tremors where the explosion set my nerves jangling, but that's gone now," J.B. replied offhandedly. "I'm ready to go."
Ryan nodded, clapping his old friend on the shoulder. "That's good. Let's get this show going."
They joined Gloria, who had been briefing the war party on what the situation appeared to be and enlightening the Crossroads people on what they might expect in the redoubt.
The Gate and Crossroads party numbered around seventy, the Gate men waiting outside with the wags for their warriors to return, as was their tradition. Running his eye over the assembly with as much detachment as he could muster, Ryan wondered whether the Crossroads fighters would be up to the task if they had to face ambushes and laser fire in a close combat situation. There was no doubting their intent and passion, as Yardie had demonstrated before leaving the ville, let alone their display in getting past booby traps the like of which were alien to them. But being hard about it, was it practical to rely on them in this situation?
Mebbe fifty percent, Ryan figured. Which meant that the bulk of the action would be down to the Gate warriors and to his own people. Looking at them, it was disheartening to see how Mildred, Doc and Jak had been affected by the pox. All three were now showing visible signs, and all had made it clear that they were aware of diminished capabilities.
Weight of numbers were good, but how many Illuminated Ones were there in the redoubt? If he had some way of knowing, or guessing, then he would feel much safer in making combat judgments.
Gloria turned to him, interrupting his train of thought.
"Next step, Ryan?"
The one-eyed man clicked into battle mode and began, "You know how the redoubts are usually laid out, from what you've just been told and from what some of you have experienced. You've also been told that the Illuminated Ones appear to have pulled all their sec right back, giving us what could be a clear run of the redoubt. A party of five will be heading for the area where the labs are usually located in order to try and find the source of the disease, and also the antidote and cure. The rest of us—our task is to wipe these bastards off the face of the earth before they can do more damage. In order to do this, there will be an advance party that will scout ahead, with a runner reporting back. The main bulk of fighters will follow when the area ahead has been recced. Those of you who will be in the advance party know you have the hardest task of all—you'll be the ones who run into danger first, so we need people who can stay frosty and triple smart, keep triple red.
"For that reason, the advance party will have to be Gate women. This isn't to belittle those of you from Crossroads—you don't have the battle experience necessary, is all. For the same reason, myself and J.B. may go, but not Doc or Jak. Like some of you Crossroads people, they have contracted the pox and know that their reflexes are slowed.
"The aim here is to keep calm, keep it under control and risk as few of us as possible until we're in full scale combat. Is that clear?"
There was a muttering and a murmur of agreement.
"Okay, then it's time to pick the scout party and get moving. We've wasted enough time already."
A six-woman scout team was picked, including Nita and Dette. Cat elected to stay with Doc.
"Don't worry, my old friend, you'll be all right with the Cat," she whispered to him. And, in truth, Doc was glad of the support as his labored breathing and aching back and ribs made it hard for him to move swiftly.
The six-woman team set off, followed by Mildred's party. They would move directly behind the scouts and then branch off when they reached the area where the lab was situated.
Or at least, that was the plan. It soon became apparent that the Illuminated Ones had other ideas.
As the scouts and the med group rounded the dogleg of the tunnel and moved downward, they noticed that some of the corridors leading to dorms, sec-camera monitor rooms and storage bays were cut off, their sec doors closed. Rooms that led directly off the corridor were also firmly closed.
Mildred called the scout party back.
"Problem?" Dette asked in an edgy tone. From the way she was looking around, Mildred guessed that the warrior was unhappy with being stuck beneath ground.
"Could be," Mildred replied. "Nothing ahead, I know, but what about these corridors and rooms?"
"What, you figure there could be warriors waiting behind them to spring out on us?"
Mildred shook her head, pulling back her plaits. "That would have already happened. Besides, it's too close to the surface for them to do that. That'll happen farther down, when they feel we have a false sense of security."
"Then what's the problem?" Dette countered.
"I just want to see if any of these doors—corridors or rooms—open when we try them," she replied.
"You are kidding, right?" Dette said sharply. "They'll be booby trapped, and blow us away if we're not careful."
"Then we'll be careful," Mildred said coldly, not caring for the woman's tone.
"For fuck's sake, we're supposed to be making an advance—" Dette began, before Tammy cut her short.
"We're not doing that, either, the more you stand here arguing," the Gate number two snapped. "Let's try some of them, yeah?"
Dette nodded, seething but keeping herself in check. The two parties then backtracked to a sec door leading to an ancillary corridor. Mildred checked and could see the code on the scratch plate above the keypad.
"You keep back," she said softly to the others.
"Hang on," Dean interrupted, staying her hand as she was about to punch the first number. "You stay back. You're the one we need to keep alive right now. Let me."
Their eyes met for a long moment, until Mildred looked away, acknowledging that Dean was right. She stepped back and joined the others, who were taking cover behind a concrete buttress.
Dean stared at the code and then at the keypad. He felt a trickle of sweat, cold in the small of his back. His finger trembled as he punched the first digit. Nothing happened. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and punched in the second. Again, nothing happened. He continued this for each digit until the last, when he hesitated for a moment, feeling a cold gnaw of fear in his gut. If it was going to go, it would on this—
He hit the last digit of the code, flinching as his finger made contact with the keypad.
Nothing.
Nothing at all. Not the explosion, ripping him to shreds, that he had feared, but neither was there any movement from the door.
Dean frowned and with a renewed confidence punched in the full code for a second time.
Again nothing happened.
He turned to the others, backing away from the door. He still kept watch from the corner of his eye, and had his Browning Hi-Power to hand, in case something should suddenly occur.
"I think they've put a lock on by remote control," he said as he drew near. "Try some of the others."
He and Mildred then worked their way back while the others kept watch, trying both the ancillary corridor sec doors and the closed doors to ancillary rooms. All were locked and failed to respond when their codes were punched in.
"We've got a real problem here," Mildred said, shaking her head in anger as she and Dean returned to the rest of the scout and lab parties.
"In what way?" Nita asked.
Tammy gave her a withering look. "You stupe bitch," she began.
"I've been saying that for a long time," Dette observed quietly, but was stopped dead by Tammy's glare.
"Cut that shit out," she hissed before explaining patiently to the tall blonde, "It's like this. They shut off all these exits, and then
we have to go exactly where they want us. Like when we arrived here, remember?"
"Well, yeah, I know that," Nita said, "but couldn't we blast open some of these doors, like J.B. did back there?"
Mildred shook her head, answering before Tammy had a chance to speak. "John blew the door stanchion to stop the thing from closing. The amount of plas-ex you'd probably need to get through a door would risk bringing the tunnel down with it."
"Well, what about jamming the circuits like you did to let us in?" the blonde countered.
Again, Mildred had to answer in the negative. "That just blew out the remote when the door was open—but it also blew the manual. I'm afraid that one only works when the doors are already open."
"Shit," Nita cursed. "So what do we do?"
Tammy jabbed her in the chest with a long finger. "You, lady, get your ass back to the main part and let Ryan and Gloria know what's going on here, then get back. We'll keep going on and see what's ahead, yeah?"
Nita turned and began to run back to relay the message. Tammy watched her go, then turned to Mildred.
"What the fuck are we gonna do about getting to the lab?" she asked with a despairing tone. It seemed that the woman was, for once, less than optimistic about their chances.
Mildred shrugged. "We do the only thing that we can—we get going and see what these assholes have in mind for us."
The scout party and the lab party, now resigned to being together on the same course regardless of intent, moved off as one, gradually stringing out until they were in formation, with Dette in the lead and Tammy bringing up the rear. They maintained distance between each member of the line, so that they wouldn't present a clustered target, but were still in close contact with one another.
"What are we looking for?" Dette asked.
"You'll know when we hit it," Dean replied.
The nerves of the invaders were stretched as taut as their formation, strung out and on edge.
"Hope something happens soon," Dette whispered. "I'd rather face buying the farm than endure much more of this."
It was almost as though the Gate warrior had prophesied her own doom.
The corridor curved sharply, and the line took the curve without closing, so that sight of Dette was lost to Tammy. So it was that the first the Gate number two knew of any trouble was when she heard the crackle of blasterfire and heard the young warrior scream.
As they rounded the corner, a side sec door opened suddenly and two Illuminated soldiers sprang from cover, crouching low to clear the door quickly as it rose, both clutching laser blasters and firing from the waist. The deadly light beams were wide of the mark, but as the two Illuminated soldiers moved across the corridor, and the front half of the advance party line— those who had taken the curve in the corridor—sought cover behind the buttresses along the wall, Dette found herself in no-man's-land, with nowhere to take cover. She dived to the ground, seeking to go low and avoid the laser blasts that flew high, but she wasn't quite quick enough. No matter how fast her reactions, they couldn't compete with the speed of light. As she fell, the beam cut down the line of her spine, burning the flesh and opening a cauterized weal that ran the length of her back. She screamed, high and piercing, and hit the concrete floor in a state of shock.
Mildred was slow in making for cover. Her reflexes had slowed with the onset of the disease, and her legs felt leaden, refusing to move as she directed. When she heard Dette scream, she twisted, bringing up her Czech-made ZKR and using the reflexes that hadn't suffered too many ravages: the accuracy of her eye and the ability to exert gentle pressure on the delicate trigger mechanism of the precision blaster.
Two shots in such quick succession that they sounded as one, took care of the immediate threat. One of the sec men was caught in the throat, the bullet ripping out his jugular and carotid in one explosive blast as the shell hit yielding flesh. The other sec man, a few inches shorter, took the bullet in the middle of his forehead, a clean, precise hole being drilled at the point where the bridge of his nose moved between his eyes.
"Mildred! Get cover!" Dean yelled, darting out from his position behind a buttress and grabbing her by her free arm, tugging her with him as he made cover once more. "Good shooting, by the way," he added as they hit the wall, Mildred gasping for breath and the younger Cawdor turning his head to view the open sec door once again.
"Is Dette chilled?" Tammy yelled from the rear of the line. The Gate second in command had rushed forward on hearing the exchange of fire and the screams of the brown skinned warrior; she was now close to the rest of the group, and could see her woman lying in the middle of the corridor, only a few yards from where the Illuminated soldiers chilled by Mildred also lay.
"She's still moving," Kass called. She was small and compact with long, tawny hair and oval eyes that gave her a dangerous feline air. Next to her, standing with her back to the wall and her blaster poised for the slightest movement, Jan was a more slender, slightly taller presence, lithe and willowy, with her shoulder length dark brown hair pulled back severely into a ponytail, her eyes large, dark and focused.
"We could try to retrieve," the taller woman whispered, her voice deep and strong even though she tried to keep it low. "You cover, we run. Figure if we take a leg each we can still have one hand on our blasters."
"Good call," Tammy replied. If there was a chance Dette was still in this world, she didn't want to leave her. The Gate were fiercely loyal to their own, and to leave a fellow warrior to slowly buy the farm would be dishonorable. "On the count of three, take her. We'll cover."
She didn't bother to wait for assent from the two women. Instead, she trained her eyes on the open sec door, watching for any sign of life. Were the chilled Illuminated soldiers the only ones involved in the ambush, or were there others, biding their time, waiting for the assault group to make the first move?
"One, two, three, four !" she yelled, judging that the moment had been stretched enough to make as sure of safety as possible, yet not so far as to overpitch the nerves of the warriors who would make the run.
All those left in cover trained their blasters on the open door, ready to fire at the slightest sign of life. The only worry was that any Illuminated soldiers who may be in the corridor beyond would be able to find an angle of fire from beyond cover, and so blast Kass and Jan as they advanced.
Keeping low, and with one eye on the open sec door, Kass and Jan broke cover and ran the few yards to where Dette lay. As they closed on her, they could hear her whimpering, barely conscious but feeling agony with every drawn breath. The laser burn down her back, ugly and raw, appeared to have avoided ripping through to any major organs. Her major problems seemed to be dehydration from the burn, shock and the damage caused by the searing heat.
Squatting, both women took hold of Dette by the ankles, one each, and began to back toward cover on the double, keeping their eyes firmly on the open door.
They attained cover with no further fire, and while Jan kept her eyes on the open sec door, Kass turned over the barely conscious Dette and pulled up her eyelids. Her eyeballs were turned into her skull, but the whites were flickering where her eyes rotated in the sockets.
"Bad burns, looks like shock. We need to get her back soonest, or she'll buy the farm," Kass said, loud enough for it to carry down the line to Tammy.
"Shit," cursed the Gate number two. In this advanced position, she could ill afford to be a warrior down, let alone two or three. Nita hadn't yet returned from her runner's mission, so to send Dette to the main party on the back of another warrior would lose her valuable numbers.
"Let me take a look at her. I may be able to do something," Mildred said softly, snaking out of cover to move around the buttress and toward the area of cover where the two women had the injured Dette.
Mildred crouched, ignoring the lights in front of her eyes and the swimming sensation in her head as she moved too quickly. Her own blood pressure was beginning to suffer as the pox took a firm hold, but at the moment this was as
nothing. Her only concern was to check whether or not she could do anything for Dette.
Giving herself a second for the lights to clear, she looked over Dette, checking her vital signs and examining the wound with a practiced eye. Pursing her lips and hoping she was right, she started to reach into a pocket. As her hand met thin air, she realized that she was wearing a discarded Illuminated Ones uniform.
"Goddammit," she cursed before thinking rapidly. Dette needed to be rehydrated and kept warm. The burn would also need dressing. Back where the Gate wags were waiting she'd left her coat and the backpack containing her med supplies. If Dette could be taken back there quickly, if a warrior could be spared… She whispered this urgently to Kass, who darted back to relay Mildred's opinion to Tammy.
The Gate number two moved forward to join Mildred and Jan, leaving Kass to keep point. She cut straight to the chase. "When that triple-stupe slow bitch Nita gets back, then she can take Dette and relay your instructions. Fuck it, she should be back by now."
From afar, it was possible to hear the beating of bare heels on the concrete, so quiet had the corridor fallen. The sound grew louder as Nita closed in.
"She's not being triple careful," Tammy breathed, casting a glance toward the still open sec door. There had been no sign of any activity, but…
Nita cornered and approached the warriors, who were still in cover. She, however, was still in the middle of the corridor, and would present a clear target. It now became obvious that Dette's low opinion of her was in some way justified, as the blonde stopped dead and stared blankly at the party in cover, a puzzled expression crossing her face as she tried to add up the seeming calm with the defensive positions they had adopted, and the obviously injured Dette.
"Wha—?" she began loudly—too loudly. The very sound of the syllable seemed to fracture the calm air that had descended on the corridor, and was a signal for an unwanted interruption. As she stood, staring triple stupe at the scene before her, two more Illuminated soldiers suddenly appeared in the doorway, visible at an oblique angle as they tried to keep cover while still angling for a clean shot at the newcomer.
Axler, James - Deathlands 60 - Destiny's Truth Page 21
